Sunday, December 8, 2013

Fat Fear: Meeting people in person you met online...

We had been playing an online game for a while together. Not one of the Role Playing Games.. it was a dice game, like Risk on steroids. We online flirted. We online chatted. We even spoke on the phone and webcammed.
And then, he wanted to meet. We had webcammed, I had been honest. But I still felt a nagging feeling. Yes, it was me on the webcam, but I looked... better... because all you could see was my face and my face is naturally thinner than the rest of me. But unlike all of those "catfish" out there, I 'fessed up and said. "Look, there's something I need to tell you before we meet..." And I showed him photos of me in all of my fat glory. He still insisted on meeting, saying that we got along so well, that he didn't care. I thought, he isn't that much of a looker himself and he is kind of husky as well. This could work.

Then the next day, we met. I was taken aback by how handsome he actually was. He was thinner than his photos, more handsome than he appeared on webcam. And he was funny. And I...all I could think about was how I looked to him. How disappointing I must have been to him. Instead of my usual confident, funny persona, I was a mere shell. Quiet, shy, uncomfortable. Immensely aware of how much space I was taking up in the world, in the booth. This man, trying to hold my hand, and all I could think was, "Why?"

The evening was awkward. Yet I still accompanied him to his hotel room. I still stayed the night with him. And we still messed around. I know, what a slut, right? But the thing is that I felt like I owed it to him. To thank him for being nice to the fat girl.

And the next day, he made up a story about how he had to go back home. How he couldn't see me again. He was the nice guy, he pretended to care about what we talked about a little bit more for a few weeks more... and then nothing.

I felt betrayed. I felt like he was shallow. I swore that I would lose the weight then and there. That was over a year ago. And it took me about that long to realize that he wasn't being shallow. He had come to see me. To meet the woman he had fallen in like with. And he didn't meet her. I shut down. It was my hang up and not his. I was a shadow of the girl he had gotten to know.

I don't want my weight to be something I think about every single day. I just want to be.

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Today is Day 14 on Whole30. Two full weeks. I learned how to make fruit rollups with strawberries, apples, and water. I also learned how to make sweet potato fries. And am starting to enjoy the taste of water.